Aveline is 21 Months

I am behind once again. Our littlest one turned 21 months old ten days ago, on Father's Day. And to celebrate, we put one more camping trip under her little belt and went to DeSoto Falls Campground again for the weekend. We left that Friday and spent two nights, and were joined the second night by our friends, Seth and Jill, and their two children, Olivia and Everett, who are sadly moving away in mid-July. They will be greatly missed, that is certain. We had a wonderful time camping with them, and lucked out in getting the only (very large) double campsite in the campground, again located by Frogtown Creek. Olivia and Elsa had a grand time splashing around and sending "barges" off down the grand rapids. (Nightly now, for more bedtimes than I can count, one of our two requested bedtime songs has been "Barges," which I learned at Girl Scout camp many a moon ago. On this camping trip, I told Elsa the story about how we made boats out of pieces of tree bark and other scraps from nature, and sent them down the river with lit candles as their passengers. And all the while we sang "Barges." I remember being so enchanted by this as a little girl, and would love to repeat this in full with the girls someday.) On our way out of town for this trip, we stopped at REI, as we realized on our last trip that we were in need of a couple more plates and mugs because of our now larger family. While at REI, I must have just happened to glance over at the hanging sleeping bags, which sparked in me the realization that I packed the sheet for the pack-n-play, but forgot to pull the pack-n-play itself out. "Jarrett, did you by any chance remember to pack the pack-n-play?" "Ummm.... nooooooo..." (Last time I remembered the pack-n-play, but forgot the sheet. Which is more important? Hmmm...) I really did not want to have to go all the way back home, so we lucked out as we did with Elsa, and they happened to have one of last season's kids sleeping bags on a really good sale and we still had a good chunk of an REI dividend, so we pretty much walked away with a free bag for Aveline. So this marked Avie's second camping trip and her first experience sleeping in a sleeping bag. She was not wild about having it pulled up around her and zipped, but otherwise she did really well. She and Elsa (by no surprise, really) had a tough time settling down and going to sleep in the evenings, but to our surprise, when once they did knock out, they actually fell asleep on their own bags and in the right direction. Yay!

I think I am getting in the mode to potty train Avie, and will likely start once she hits 22 months. She still has the desire, it seems, and I've decided I really need to at least try to capitalize on it. So I guess I will report more on that next month!

Her Mommy Shirt is still the prized possession. And Hop-Hop is still the close runner-up. These must be in bed with her when it is that time. And she will often just randomly ask for the shirt throughout the day. She still likes to hold it (and other fabric whatevers, if she doesn't have hold of the shirt) to her mouth, and it is still very cute.

I realized on the camping trip, after I thought she was pointing to the car and saying "home" because she wanted to go home, that she calls the car "Home." I guess we must say the word "home" a lot when we are getting into the car; thus, our car now has a name.

Avie is becoming more and more adventurous. Elsa was never a big climber as a toddler, but this one... this one was caught standing atop the kitchen island, dancing around last week. It progressed from getting on top of the step stool and then up to the bar stool, then to the counter. She can get up onto our bed now. We had the ladder to the bunk beds up for a little while, and she mastered that. And several times now we have caught her halfway (or all the way) up the stairs before we've caught her. Thankfully there have not been any significant falls, but it still worries me, for sure. I think we're going to have to look into a gate for the bottom of the stairs. That or I just need to be more vigilant. She is good about waiting if we catch her starting up and tell her to wait, but if we're not around... So, Uncle Stephen, I think you might have a climbing buddy in the making!

My, how we love this girl!